


forever feels like home sitting all alone inside your head

by mathonwys



Series: i'm looking at you through the glass [1]
Category: The Yogscast
Genre: F/M, Flux Buddies, Hurt/Comfort, Self Harm, mental illness implications, nano gets fluxed, psychosis!nano
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-27
Updated: 2015-05-27
Packaged: 2018-04-01 11:57:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4018840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mathonwys/pseuds/mathonwys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"And, uh, second question..." Nano jumped off the roof and floated up. Lalna watched her as she glided back in the direction of the castle; she turned in mid-air as he started to follow, and finally their eyes met. Nano's eyes had a faint sheen of purple to them now, or maybe it was just his imagination.</p><p>"What happens now?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	forever feels like home sitting all alone inside your head

**Author's Note:**

> i'm looking at you through the glass, don't know how much time has passed, oh god it feels like forever but no one ever tells you that forever feels like home sitting all alone inside your head
> 
> me, several days ago: "son of a fuck Through Glass gives me nanocoffee feelios and not in a good way. fuck. shit. fuck. fuuuuuuuuuuuck"
> 
> and then i wrote a fic about That Episode of the apprentice. the episode that killed me inside. the one that Literally made me mildly depressed after watching it.
> 
> almost all dialogue is taken from the episode, save for the end. because damnit lalna never apologised properly >8(
> 
> nano has psychosis that only gets worse once she's been fluxed, lalna is autistic but i don't know if it's obvious because i'm autistic so i just write him the way i normally write people :P
> 
> any typos are bc i wrote this at 1 am.

"I wouldn't go too near that-- that sphere... It has a large amount of Flux inside it."

Lalna squinted up at the huge glass sphere through the rain. He could only just make out Nano's figure as she crouched on the top of the ball; no doubt she was glaring down at him as she shouted her reply. As much as he loved teasing his childish apprentice, there was still a prickle of fear seeing her with only a thick sheet of reinforced glass between her and the unstable, angry node. It was sturdy enough for her to put her full weight on it, even with the Flux storm raging inside like a caged beast beating against it's prison, but if she got careless...

"Don't worry about it! I'm hiding from you-- I'm hiding from you because... I don't trust you with that gun."

Lalna chuckled and holstered his portal gun, then held his hands up for Nano to see he was now unarmed. He could imagine her furious face relaxing into the one that she always had whenever he started messing around: bridge of her nose pinched, eyes wary, mouth pulled in a slight frown as she got ready to chide him. Still on her guard, of course, but not ready to punch him and hopefully not pissed enough to slip and fall.

His eyesight was a little distorted and blurred by the steady rainfall, but he could still see the shape on the glass sphere go from on hands-and-knees to a full, if unsteady, stand. Nano's hair whipped around in the wind like a dark halo as she slowly inched into a good position to jump off and jetpack back to the ground. Lalna's tongue poked out between his teeth as he squinted one eye closed. One thick glove came off to reveal his cherished power tool, and within a moment a glowing sphere of plasma was building in his palm as he took aim. It was going to be a wide shot, of course; just another continuation of the game that had chased Nano up to her hiding-spot in the first place, and hopefully one that would coax her to a safer haven.

The ball of plasma whizzed past Nano's ear and she staggered back. " **NO** \-- And I don't trust you with _that_ gun!" With Lalna on the ground and herself on top of the Flux containment sphere, the only way Lalna would be able to actually shoot her would be through the glass itself, which was thankfully impossible. She leaned over enough to shoot daggers down at him upon hearing his familiar teasing laugh. Was he seriously still passing this off as a game? "What're you doing?! _What're you doing_ \--"

"I like my guns." Lalna couldn't hide his wide grin of pride as he slipped the portal gun back onto his free arm. He feigned taking aim; even he didn't want to know the results of placing a portal on the only thing standing between the outside world and the raging node, but Nano didn't know that.

"Leave me alone!" Nano snapped down at him in her usual fashion. Another continuation of their game, which was usually followed by Nano soaring off to a safe spot further off and Lalna having to give chase. She shook one fist at him and turned on her heel to bolt in the direction away from her idiot of a teacher. He had a lot of nerve, shooting at her like that--

One foot came down too hard on a segment of glass already weakened by the Flux eating away at it. It shattered.

She gasped as her foot was suddenly resting on thin air and her leg jerked down. Her loss of balance sent her careening to land face-first on the glass; the sudden application of weight sent the rest of the weakened surface shattering as well, and all Nano could do was tumble through the air as she fell down into the Flux.

Crystals broke underneath her weight as she slammed into the stone bottom of the sphere. Nano pressed one hand against her face; her nose was warm and wet with blood, but all she could focus on was where she was. She was in the sphere. She couldn't see it at the moment, but she could vividly remember when Lalna had given her the special goggles and she'd looked for the first time at the whirling rampage of purple energy just barely contained. **_And she was in it._**

"I've fallen-- I've fallen," she gasped. Through the glass she could see Lalna race up to her level before the scientist landed near the broken-open hole and stared down at her in alarm. "What do I do?!" Nano yelled up at him in barely-restrained terror.

"Y-You shouldn't be in there, Nano," Lalna stammered. He couldn't think of what else to say. This was ... he didn't have any words for it. This was a disaster. A Flux containment breach was easily one of the worst things that could've happened, and now his apprentice was right in the heart of it... He could hear her stammering, trying to form words, and he himself was mumbling weakly like he was trying to reassure her. He sat loosely cross-legged near the hole and stared down at her with a blank expression. What could he do? He wanted to scream, to curse, to do _anything_ \--

She wasn't insulated against the Flux like he was. For all he knew it was already taking root in her, infecting her, killing her slowly from the inside. Nano was going to die.

"I--"

His throat closed up and the scientist blinked a few times to shy away from tears. He had to be impartial about this. He couldn't let his emotions get in the way of what had to be done. Nano had never seen Lalna back in "the glory days", during the Tekkit War, but he could easily feel himself retreating back into that mindset that she had unknowingly coaxed him out of.

"...I'm gonna have to seal you in now. Forever."

Lalna's voice was quiet, but it still carried enough for Nano to hear. Even if she hadn't heard him, she could definitely see as Lalna grabbed supplies from a nearby storage meant for maintenance. "No-- No!" she shouted in desperation.  "No-- Why? _Why_?! Why're you sealing me in--"

"You've just fallen into the Flux!" Lalna retorted. He rarely raised his voice around her, but without thinking he was scolding her like she was a child. Without even paying her much heed, he set to mending the damage. Nano shouted up at him in outrage.

"There was a hole up there! **WHY'D YOU HAVE A HOLE UP THERE**?!"

"Well I, um, I, I-- I didn't expect anyone to go _inside_!" Lalna babbled. Nano's entryway had been the out-of-use maintenance trap door, which now lay in pieces at the bottom of the sphere along with his distressed apprentice. No one was supposed to go inside the sphere except him, and even he had stopped doing it as the node grew fiercer. The least he could do was seal the entryway before anything worse happened, even if it meant sealing Nano inside it.

"I didn't mean to, I was running away from you and your _stupid gun_!" Her eyes stung with anger-fueled tears. "This is _your fault_!"

Lalna broke into hysteric laughter as he screwed the last bolt into place and leaped off the top to hover uneasily next to the sphere. Inside he could see Nano bouncing around like she'd gone mad; he'd built the sphere to be impenetrable, but she was doing her best to test its limits in the hopes of an escape.

"I-- We-- Whoever's fault it is, it happened, and I'm afraid--"

"Ho-How do I, how do I get out?! Lemme out. _Lemme out_!" Her voice cracked as she pounded against the glass with her fists. Fear seized Nano in an iron grip. Was he really doing this to her? This must be some nightmare; there was no way the quirky, scatterbrained scientist she'd drawn close to would do this to her... right?

"You can't. You can't come out." He turned his head so he didn't have to see her heartbroken face. Her protest came out as a wail.

"Why not?!"

"Y.. I'm sorry, you can't come out. It's-- you're--" He was scrambling for excuses, and he knew it. As always, Nano saw right through him.

"But you don't even know what this _does_!" She pressed up against the glass and stared at him. "You don't even know what this does," Nano repeated pleadingly.

" _I **know**_!" It came out fiercer than he intended. Lalna slammed his fists against the wall; with his head bowed, he didn't see the shocked expression on Nano's face. "Exactly, we have to quarantine you--" He was doing this for her own good, he reminded himself as he pressed his palms flat against the glass sphere. Nano had to be quarantined. Nano had to be sealed in, because who knows what would happen if she was let out.

Even though a small voice in his head was pointing out to him that the longer Nano spent in the sphere, the more and more Flux her body was absorbing. She would be dead before sunset.

"It'll be fine! I'll be-- It won't do anything, lemme _out_ \--"

"You're not wearing protective clothing!" She wasn't listening to him. Light flared from inside the sphere as Nano's jetpack ignited and sent her ricocheting up to the hastily-mended patch. Lalna watched in horror as his ever-inventive apprentice wedged her ruby sword in the gap and put all her weight against it. The seams creaked, then gave way. The impromptu lid popped off and with a roar of engines Nano was shooting up in the skies like a rocket.

"I'm coming out! _I'm out_!" Happiness surged in her as she breathed in the crisp rainy air, not even caring that her cheongsam was getting soaked through. "I'm out."

"Stay away from me," Lalna stammered as he drifted away from where she stood on top of the sphere like a king surveying her kingdom. At the same time joy was lighting up Nano, fear was plunging him into darkness. The most he could do was turn tail and run; Nano stared after him as he raced across the skies and out of sight.

"Lalna, where are you-- Lalna? Why are you running? Why are you running, Lalna?" She skidded down the side of what had been her prison and launched off to glide after him. Why was he acting like this? Shouldn't he be happy? _She_ was happy, for sure. Ignoring his shouted protests, Nano called after him like their game from earlier had continued: "Why are you running? Give me a hug~"

"Get-- Get inside this, this... This lovely... cube... It's..." Following the sound of his voice, Nano landed on an overlooking balcony and leaned over. Lalna met her eyes and immediately averted them. He never thought he'd have to use Rythian's prison again, but with Nano loose his only option was to try and coax her into it. "I-- It's beautiful in here, you could live here." His words sounded false even to his own ears. God, what was he _doing_? He wasn't even fooling _himself_.

Why was he so afraid? Why was he afraid for _her_? His entire life had been spent wrapped up in science and machines and theories and careful magic. Other people were not a priority for him. It had been weird enough that he'd taken this strange girl in, but now he was scared for her _safety_...

"No. Absolutely _not_." Nano dangled her legs over the edge of the balcony. "Just... no." With a light push she was in free-fall, and again her jetpack activated to allow her to leisurely coast through the air towards the prison Lalna was trying to convince her to stay in. Even from the air it looked ominous: a dark cube, with only a skylight as its distinguishing feature. "I don't trust you. It looks like that thing from X-Men, that they put Magneto in?"

Even in his current emotional state, Lalna felt himself smile. "Do you feel okay?" he called up to her as she glided in. "How do you feel?"

Nano's eyes unfocused slightly as she thought. "I feel... I feel a bit dizzy," she admitted reluctantly. "Feel a bit _itchy_." She landed with a thump on the skylight of the prison and stared down into it. Her fingertips tingled, and without paying much thought to it Nano ran her fingernails across her arm to try and soothe the itch crawling under her skin. "And a bit... warm." Not a comfortable warmth. This was the warmth from wearing blankets on a summer's day: clogging, sweaty, uncomfortable. Her skin felt cold to her own touch, and she couldn't tell if the chill she felt at odds with the burning warmth was the rain or something else. She wandered to the edge of the roof. "What does that stuff do?"

Lalna didn't meet her eyes.

"I thought it was just magic. I thought it'd be _fine_." Nano turned to look over her shoulder at the sprawling castle, where the Flux was lurking just out of sight. The itchiness made her scratch harder, her fingernails leaving white trails on her skin; there was something boiling underneath it, searing in her veins, and something in her wanted to let it **out**.

"Well, it _is_ magic, but it's the... exact opposite of _good_ magic." He still wasn't meeting her eyes. "It's like... pure chaos, and-- and **evil**."

"Oh." Nano looked down at her hands. Her palms tingled with the restless, burning feeling. "...And I've just fallen into it." She let her arms drop back to her sides. Fuck. Her hair was plastered to her skin, and her nose had stopped bleeding sometime during her daring escape. Shards of gems clung to the back of her cheongsam like deadly glitter. "Um." Her voice wavered. Lalna was laughing now, the kind of laugh that only happened after a near-death experience.

"Two questions?" Nano spoke up after she regained her composure. "One: Why do you have it?"

Lalna still wasn't looking at her, but at least his laughter had subsided. His stare was transfixed on the glass ball only just visible past his castle's towers. "Haha, well, it's a long story... It comes with the good magic, you have to have an equal amount of _bad_ magic."

"Okay." She didn't sound convinced. Her conviction dropped even further after his follow-up.

"Especially if you make it angry. Like I did."

"And, uh, second question..." Nano jumped off the roof and floated up. Lalna watched her as she glided back in the direction of the castle; she turned in mid-air as he started to follow, and finally their eyes met. Nano's eyes had a faint sheen of purple to them now, or maybe it was just his imagination.

"What happens now?"

"Well, I dunno." His laugh was shaky. "I've always worn protective suits when I've gone inside." The two of them began the journey back to the familiar courtyard together. "We'll just have to wait and see... I don't want to get too close to you, for a little while."

"I feel itchy," Nano complained softly. Lalna hung back and watched as her head disappeared from sight.

"Maybe you should just go ahead and rest," he suggested gently. Nano balked in response.

"I feel **fine**!" she argued, even though the itchy-tingling-scratching said otherwise. "I feel--" Nano swayed in mid-air and landed on one of the many balconies framing the courtyard. "Actually, no... I do feel a bit dizzy," she relented. "I do feel a bit sick." She looked over as Lalna landed on the stone outcropping across from her and hurried over. "And a bit warm, and a bit... tingly?" She stared down at herself. "You know, like when you get goosebumps?"

"Tingly?" Lalna echoed with obvious unease.

"I think you're right, maybe we should cut lessons short for today..." Nano hurried inside her tower. Lalna hovered outside with a conflicted expression as she spoke. "I'll go... and rest up... With my, uh, scented candles over here." He couldn't see her, but he could hear the teasing smile in her words. Maybe she would be okay. Night had fallen, but she was still alive, and that had to be a good sign, right?

"Am I gonna wake up?"

He didn't answer.

Nano didn't notice when Lalna left, nor when he returned a few minutes later. She _did_ hear the click of her door locking, and another sound she realized with dread that she'd heard earlier that day: the same nervous, fearful laughter she'd heard while inside the sphere.

"I'm gonna... I'm gonna just like... close off, um, your doors."

"Wait, no-- _What_?" Nano scrambled up the stairs just in time to see the heavy stone bricks slide into place. Her heart caught in her throat. "Don't-- Don't lock me in, why are you locking me in? _You're locking me in my tower_!"

"Just for the night," he said weakly. More stones were pushed into place to block off the lower door. He couldn't think about her right now. He couldn't think about her terrified face, about the fear in her voice, about how he was condemning her to death.

"Oh my God, Lalna, _why are you sealing me in_?!" He caught a glimpse of her face as he soared past her window and immediately regretted it. Betrayal was etched on her expression like he'd carved it in himself. "Nothing's gonna happen!" she protested as he set to work on the back door.

"It's just a precaution," Lalna said, and he wasn't sure if it was for her comfort or for his own.

"It's fine! Nothing's gonna happen, Lalna! I'm sure it--" Nano pleaded. She stood behind the door as he jammed it shut. "Oh, wow," he heard her whisper. "He's actually..."

He didn't think about it.

"Yeah, if it doesn't, then we're... we're fine." He still had some leftover building materials from the cell he'd tried to put her in earlier. Lalna sighed like the weight of the world was on his shoulders as he bolted them into place.

"Lalna...?"

"It's okay, Nano," he said. The light from her door's window vanished as he sealed it up. "It's okay," he repeated, but his shaky, nervous laugh slipped out like a traitorous secret. "Don't worry about it."

"I'd believe you if you said that while not backing away slowly while _sealing me into my tower_."

The windows were next to go. She didn't see his hands shaking as he nailed the wood planks into place. "Goodnight, then," Nano mumbled. She stumbled downstairs just in time to see the last of her windows covered up. "Lalna?"

"There," he said nervously. "Safe and sound."

"....Lalna?"

He laughed again. "Good-- Goodnight," Lalna called out. To Nano, it sounded like he might as well have said " _goodbye forever_ ".

"Goodnight...?"

* * *

Nano lay on the floor and stared up at the ceiling of her tower. The obsidian "escape hatch" taunted her. She'd been showing it to Lalna when the fight started, and now it remained as a reminder of what had happened and her current situation.

She'd slept to pass the time, at first. Then she'd started building, but a lack of proper tools and too many splinters led to a shitty attempt at a table being kicked down the stairs. After that she sat and watched the quarry pipes, but even that grew too much to bear after long enough.

As despair hit, so did psychosis. She spent many nights thrashing and screaming in bed; hallucinations danced across the walls of tentacles, of looming monsters; voices whispered in her ears of a Purpose, of a Mother, of a Plan for her. She scratched at her arms and face until they bled, and through the blood she didn't see the unhealthy purple tinge her skin started to take. Day and night blurred into an unending hell for her as the Flux ate away at her.

It was one hundred days before Nano grabbed her ruby tools and broke down the barriers that had been put up.

Her voice echoed through Lalna's lab, icy cold: " _You forgot about me, Lalna. **You left me to die, Lalna.**_ "

She looked at herself, really looking for the first time in a hundred maddening days, and screamed.

And then Lalna had hugged her.

She cried gross tears into his equally gross labcoat and hit him as hard as she could, but he didn't let go. His gloved fingers twined in her hair like they belonged there as he murmured quiet apologies and reassuring phrases. He told her he'd heard her nightmares, had heard her violent fits, had heard _everything_ , but hadn't been able to do a damn thing. She told him she hated him, she hoped he died, she hoped he could've checked in on her sooner.

Lalna's stupid fucking sorting system was in a mess around them, but they didn't care. Eventually Nano's sobs trailed off into nothingness, and Lalna's labcoat was wet from tears, and she didn't look up but his face was streaked with wetness too.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"You better be," she said, but all the fire had gone out of her.

They sat in silence together for what might've been hours. Finally Lalna helped her to her feet, put his hands on her shoulders, and said with his trademark goofy smile, "well, we should finish up your apprenticeship, shouldn't we?"

Nano punched him. He rubbed his cheek with the back of his hand and started to laugh, genuinely laugh, for the first time in a hundred days. After a few moments, Nano joined in too.


End file.
